Random Musings: I've been on vacation all week and apparently that means I took a vacation from blogging as well. I am such a creature of habit that once I stopped blogging daily, I pretty much stopped blogging. I'm hoping to get back to it with more frequency starting right now.
We didn't do a big cross country trip for vacation this year as we have the last couple years. Between an anniversary (10 1/2 years, 11 in a couple weeks) trip to Vegas, a piano purchase for our aspiring rock star son, and a week to Camp Ehawee for my daughter, we thought we'd be more budget conscious this year. So, I took a week off from work and we spent the middle 3 days in Wisconsin Dells. We had a great time.
I had a plan of staying in a non waterpark hotel so that we would go out and do the touristy things we never do on our trips to the Dells. I have fond memories of a similar trip with my Mom when I was a kid, so I thought why not? We stayed in a 2 room cottage at the Black Hawk Motel, which turned out to be pretty nice actually. My kids are not real daredevils , so the regular pool was a treat for them and we had an in room jacuzzi, which my son enjoyed repeatedly (in the nude btw, which he thought was awesome. I fear for the future). I'm not sure what audience the Black Hawk was shooting for with the cottage... It had a queen bed in one room and two queens in another, so it was family friendly, but in addition, it had mirrors on the ceiling and surrounding the hot tub, which would suggest a somewhat different intentionality...
Oh well, it worked for us and we'd stay there again and it was reasonably priced for a two room cottage. If we were more budget conscious even, we could have had even cheaper room in the clean and nice, but dated, motel section. We used the motel as home base to go to several Dells tourist attractions, including Wizard Quest, jet boat adventures (see before pic above), and the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory. We also took a trip on the Ducks and enjoyed each of our little tourist adventures. The trip was exactly what I had hoped for. I even managed to go running on the middle day, which I can talk more about in a bit. We topped off vacation week with a day trip from home on Friday to Lark Toys in Kellogg MN, a neat place for anyone with kids or grandkids. And now we are home, tired and happy and putting our yard back in order and trying to find the rhythm of home life again. I am due back at work on Monday and it will get real busy real fast with school starting on the 22nd and all the preparation that goes into being ready.
Vacation is always needed to me and this one was timely. It reconnected me with the people I care most about and reminded me that children's point of view is sadly lost on us as we grow older and we think we grow wiser.
Exercise update: I am bummed to say that I have partially done exactly what I hoped I wouldn't. I did the triathlon on July 23rd and haven't been working out regularly since. The tri was 2 weeks ago today and my "work outs" have been one bike ride the Monday after, a 20 minute run last Monday and a 30 minute run on Wednesday in the Dells. I might be forgetting one other short run, but I can't remember, so if it exists it must not have been much. My other exercise has been walking the dog, yardwork and my pretty active vacation time.
My plan had been to not treat the tri as an ending but rather as a through point on the way to the next goal, but... well it's obvious I didn't do that. Today is 10 weeks until the Urbanathlon and I can run about 30 minutes comfortably (I'm comfortable during I mean), so I have a ways to go.
The other major issue getting in the way is continued trouble with my foot. Maybe it was the pool time in the Dells or just a lot of time on my feet, but by Friday my foot was pretty miserable. In fact Friday frightened me because I felt weakness in my right leg in the middle of the day which seemed associated with clenching my foot all the time to protect it. It seemed to get better with a couple Advil and some time off my feet. It was much less stiff this a.m., so I'm going to try to give it more rest and ice and Advil for a couple days and see where we are at. I'll probably try to get to the Chiro as well on Monday or Wednesday. I must admit, I was pretty depressed about it yesterday and thought maybe the Urbanathlon was going to be out of reach, but I'm not ready to give up on that yet. I'll focus on what I can do and on healing. Even if that means I don't run until next Saturday, I have 9 weeks to get ready and I can work on strength and other cardio in the meantime.
The foot thing is weird. It goes up and down with soreness, but on Wednesday I decided to run anyway and it feels like it warms up and feels ok running. However, I feel like the next day it's much worse and it worries me that I'm setting myself back. Part of me says just train and trust that running feels ok, part of me worries that I'm making the situation worse, and part of me thinks, I'm 41 and have a crappy arthritic foot that will be an issue from now on...
See, I can even be neurotic about foot pain. I suppose I can still play the MRI card or maybe massage therapy.
Nutrition update: I haven't been using the food tracker again until today. I tried not to go too crazy on vacation, but with all the restaurant food, I'm sure I didn't do great. I'm tracking again today and I will get back on the scale tomorrow and go from there. I'll be stunned if I haven't gained a pound or two frankly.
It feels like a good springboard time for my nutrition because my wife and kids are talking about healthier eating as well, so we can support each other.
As any of you know, I have been beyond frustrated with my lack of weight loss during this project but I am pleased with some dietary growth. I am drinking little or no soda most days and feel on my way to getting that monkey off my back as well. I did much better with this on vacation than expected, so I should be able to build on that even as school year stress sets in. I'm also using fruit as a snack option more often, now to add those salads...
More reports to come (shorter I promise) as I get back in the habit of being accountable to the cyber world from my fitness and nutrition goals and apparently share other random thoughts that people occasionally find interesting or relevant. Or maybe you just feel better because I'm way more messed up than you are and that builds your confidence:)
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